SAGINAW, MI -- The two men charged in connection with an arson at the Home Depot in Kochville Township may receive separate trials.

Circuit Judge James T. Borchard at a later date will rule on a request for separate trials filed by Terrance A. Furline's attorney.

Furline and Alvin B. Jenkins Sr. are charged with conducting a continuing criminal enterprise and other felonies in connection with an Oct. 29 fire at the Home Depot at 3132 Bueker off Bay near Tittabawassee.

Furline's motion, filed by attorney William White, is rooted in the fact that Jenkins told police after his arrest that Furline was the one who had the idea to set the fire to make away with store merchandise and was the one who set the fire.

White argued the motion Thursday, May 5, before Borchard, who said he would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling at a later date. Furline, 37, and Jenkins, 51, are scheduled for a June 28 trial before Borchard.

To receive a separate trial, defendants generally must show that they and their co-defendant or co-defendants have "mutually exclusive" defenses that would lead a jury to have to choose one defendant's defense over another defendant's defense.

In his motion, White writes that Furline told Jenkins he was going to set the fire. When Jenkins protested against involving himself in the scheme, the motion states, Furline said to him, "Don't worry about it, just push the cart out" and "Roll this up front, because I'm fixin' to start a fire."

Store worker Kathy Marciak has testified she foiled the defendants' plan to make away with $1,300-worth of merchandise by pushing the cart away from Jenkins after the fire was started.

Jenkins told police that when the men were in their vehicle after the fire, Furline said to him, "When you start a fire, you get commotion in the place." Furline also admitted to setting the fire, Jenkins told police, according to the motion.

Furline should receive a separate trial, White writes, because it is his theory of the case that Jenkins acted alone in setting the arson fire.

Michigan State Police Specialist Sgt. Lenny Jaskulka, a fire investigator, testified at the defendants' preliminary hearing that the fire started in Aisle 13, Bay 20, and was the result of somebody applying an open flame to a combustible vertical stack of vinyl insulation boards.

The smoke from the fire got "really black, really fast, and there was a lot of it," said Marciak, the store clerk.

Following the fire, Jenkins called his friend and Furline's mother, Doris Furline-Walker, and reported that he and Furline were unsuccessful at the store, Furline-Walker testified as a prosecution witness. Jenkins said the fire "got out of control," Furline-Walker said.

Furline-Walker said she and her son had done something similar the day before at the Home Depot at 4380 W. Corunna in Flint Township.

An affidavit for a search warrant authored by Saginaw County Sheriff's Detective Aaron Simons states a male placed a table saw on the shopping cart and that a woman pushed the cart out of the store following the fire. Twenty minutes later, at the Home Depot in Burton, the same male returned the saw, Simons stated. Store workers required the man to provide his driver's license, and that license was Furline's, Simons stated.

That incident led Marciak and her co-workers to be more aware of a similar incident happening at their store, they testified.

The criminal enterprise charge that the men face carries a 20-year maximum penalty. They also face single counts of third-degree arson and first-degree retail fraud and separate counts of conspiring to commit those crimes.

Furline has at least 20 prior felony convictions, including recent ones that involved him assaulting police officers to the point that they were hospitalized, Saginaw County Sheriff William Federspiel has said. Jenkins has at least eight prior felony convictions dating to 1983.

Both men remain jailed.

-- Andy Hoag covers courts for MLive/The Saginaw News. Email him at ahoag@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter @awhoag